Dear me, when does this propaganda of “flexible” sexuality stop? There are bisexuals as there are gays and straights – why mingle them all into same pot? If a bisexual who previously was with a boy comes along with a girl nowadays, he isn’t a gay with “changed orientation”, he is still a bisexual as he was before. You guys better spare me from this “flexible” and “metrosexual” agitation – I prefer to stay a “rigid” gay, a faggot, a “Schwuchtel”, if I may. In my entire life, I have met lots of men who admitted their homosexuality after years of struggle with themselves, but I have never met a homosexual who finally has discovered his heterosexuality. If such a thing exists, this can’t possibly happen that often – that’s all about the “dark secret wrapped in mystery”. What scientific findings lead the disputants to these particular conclusions? I shall eat my shoe if they have some statistics or ecperimental proves for their highly speculative claims.

What they say is this: "difference in sexual orientation is without importance".What they infer is "variation in sexual orientation is the order of the day".What they do not tell is that to them,and seen from their perspective where the hethro privilege is not in their secure possession,gaynessshould remain without importance and not make waves.Because we gays do not have yet the research institutions,both scientific and political,we would have in a State of ours,we are not briefed on the situation and therefore not fully aware that the hethroflexibles improperly called bisexual do not have in general good relations with gays.They have had with us conflicts,among others over the issue of their hethro prozelitism towards gays,which is a feature of their particular orientation.It shows in their approach towards the next gay or bunch of gays they encounter,after their conflict with previous ones.That`s one difficulty in living among an hethro majority,of which the hethroflexibles are part,that we have to assess directly foreign characters on our own,rather than compare our observations with other gays as we would do among a gay majority.The hethroflexibles would probably and sincerely want to avoid any conflict over a difference in sexual orientation.But their behavior leads to justthat and sooner.And they will collide with us first after having wrongly figured that we might be weaker than heterosexuals.Which as individualsis not true.Hethroflexibles are not in a situation as favourable as ours,mainly because they try to fool too many people at the same time,actually both sides in the hethro/gay contest.Whereas we gays are dealing only with one side,the hethro side.

An interesting, and a highly provocing article to me as a gay nationalist as well. :b I will try to express some of my thoughts which appeared while reading this marvellous peace of civil war literature.

RAPHAEL: What is gay and lesbian fundamentalism?

WALCOTT: It’s a hell-bent desire on heterosexual respectability. What it means is that there are members of “the gay and lesbian community” that become unacceptable. It has a foundation – not unlike many other religious fundamentalisms – that is deeply moral. I don’t want to pick on the [gay] rights people, but definitely the overwhelming kind of argument for rights has produced this gay moralistic fundamentalism which puts down people who question boundaries, who raise difficult questions, who behave in a way that might trouble some of us.

I am afraid, Mr Walcott mistakenly uses the term “gay and lesbian fundamentalism“ for what should be better described as “religious fundamentalism among gays and lesbians”. Indeed, the word fundamentalism is constantly used to describe an extreme devotion to the particular ideology to which it is attached. Therefore, “gay and lesbian fundamentalism“ should be correctly used in connection with individuals strongly devoted to “gayness and lesbianism” – you will easily identify some in this forum. :b

Beyound this minor confusion, I completely agree with him that while the gay rights movement was fighting the battles for legal and moral recognition by the mainstream society, the lines of division were re-drawn. As a consequence, certain parts of the LGBT-community were excluded from the new circle of “respectable society” – boy lovers are one example. Now, we must not confuse all ethical objections with that hypocritical moralism we encounter in the gay community again. The “religious fundamentalism among gays and lesbians” is indeed a sign of gaining respectability on the costs of other, vulnerable members of the society; ethical judgment is a sign of mature and responsibility. While morals are condemning the individuals, ethics are condemning the behaviour while harmful or self-destructive. One can certainly not be forced to agree that sex with immature boys is doing them any good, but one should be open-minded enough to consider the fact that legal age of consent often does not correspond with the actual (biological) age of sexual maturity. Social exclusion of cross-generation couples, drag queens and other “freaks” shall be recognized as what it is: self-righteousness in its purest form. To the same self-righteousness we shall count also the incredible arrogance of some gay parents who regard themselves of more value than other, “infertile” gays, and assume the worst attitudes we have ever encountered among straights.

WALCOTT: And part of what has happened in the moment of achieving rights is that “proper lesbian and gay history” is undergoing a radical rewriting. And part of that rewriting is that all the marginal, outlaw figures of Jews, blacks, Latinos and drag queens have been written out of history. [..] But we also need to know the names of the drag queens at Stonewall who said, “No more of this shit.”

For the past 6 monthes, I follow the discussions in the russian forums about the pro’s and contra’s of a gay parade in Moscow, planned by Mr Nikolay Alexeev. Interestingly, many of the “gay activists” and busines people are strongly opposed to the notion of a gay parade – out of a fear that someone “might be injured”. Certainly those are justified qualms, but at the end it will be again the “outcasts” who will make the history – betrayed by the middle-class gay establishment, anyway enjoining a relative safety.

CHOY: I think that instead of calling it queer culture, it should be called sexual culture. [..] We have to ask the question: what makes us human? And I think that one of the answers is that being human is to be fluid, and to acknowledge that fluidity and people’s flow at different ages, different places.

Dear me, when does this propaganda of “flexible” sexuality stop? There are bisexuals as there are gays and straights – why mingle them all into same pot? If a bisexual who previously was with a boy comes along with a girl nowadays, he isn’t a gay with “changed orientation”, he is still a bisexual as he was before. You guys better spare me from this “flexible” and “metrosexual” agitation – I prefer to stay a “rigid” gay, a faggot, a “Schwuchtel”, if I may. In my entire life, I have met lots of men who admitted their homosexuality after years of struggle with themselves, but I have never met a homosexual who finally has discovered his heterosexuality. If such a thing exists, this can’t possibly happen that often – that’s all about the “dark secret wrapped in mystery”. What scientific findings lead the disputants to these particular conclusions? I shall eat my shoe if they have some statistics or ecperimental proves for their highly speculative claims.

RAPHAEL: But sometimes you sit back and you feel guilty when you challenge something like, say, gay marriage. [..]

No one shall restrict his mind from considering alternative social institutions, like, let’s say a clan system or free love or poligamy or whatever other system one shall invent. But attacking gays who feel most comfortable in a monogamous same-sex marriage is a token of ideologic blindness: as long as the institution of marriage exists and many gays are happy to become married, they shall have the right to do so. Discussions about the sense of marriage should not end up in derision of married couples, as it by times happens here and there.

What happens between gays is a matter only for a gay normative system and government.That normative system and government could or could not,depending upon the circumstances and for reasons of public order,import some variant of the institution of marriage among the citizens of a gay country. [..] a gay State might have to encourage its citizens to register those preferencial relations,for example in the form of monogamous or polygamous cliques,clans or tribes.

We must accept that there is nothing like one “gay lifestyle”, but indeed a plentitude of “gay lifestyles”, which in their diversity form our culture. Both, in Diaspora and in the future State, gays shall adopt practical models of relationships. Socio-economic and sexual communities have not necessarily to be the same thing – one can easily imagine clans as a suitable social units, while romantic affiliation with an individual could be freed from any economic component.

CHOY: We’re not talking to each other. How will you create a space where we will talk to each other?

Certainly, experiencing different people occasionally is a good idea, even if just for broadening one’s horizon. It’s true, from time to time we must meet people with different experiences - for me, those people can all be gays, and a few gay-friendly straights. The lack of public space for encountering other gays and lesbians is indeed a problem: in the most cases, we simply do not have the possibility to meet our people and have a conversation beyound the small-talk in the bar. Our own communal cultural centres certainly would contribute much to trans-gender and trans-generation communications. But we certainly will not achieve any progresses on that way if we accept, as the disputants suggest, that our sexual identity is “fluid” and we indeed do not exist up to this logic.

I would add that the state of gay culture seems to be in the hands of a few literati who are basically sucking at the teat of academia. Here too it seems that the academics' only contact with the gay world is a handful of privileged university students and a comfortable life near to one of the largest gay ghettos on the planet.

Indeed – some of the academics are adherent to the ridiculous idea, that homosexuality and homosexuals were “invented” in the middle of 19th century and, alike, fall prey to the idea that they can re-determine sexual nature of a man by simply introducing new labels. Rictor Norton has deconstructed this foolish notion in his “Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory”.

Some people aren't gay. Is it exclusionary to say that some people are, quite simply, not gay? Perhaps, if it is exclusionary to say that a mountain is not a prairie. Shall a rose bush be offended that it may not be classed among the trees?

That “fluid” theory of sexuality is strongly connected to the ridicolous strive of most people to find simple, but universal explanations for every question. To that logic, a man of wits and honor must think day and night about the global problems of the mankind and search for a solution which would provide happiness to each and everyone on the planet. It is beyound my understanding, why some individuals can’t accept the simple truth that gays are as different from straights as seldom an ethnic group is different from the other – we are therefore in need of our own partial solutions. Why artificially mingle oil with water? They will separate anyway.

The very idea that the gay people will be liberating heterosexuals from anything is really quite absurd. If we have learned anything, it is that liberating ourselves is more than battle enough. If the hets are to be liberated, they shall have to accomplish this feat on their own.

We shall acknowledge that a free and unprejudiced conversation with straight men often has extremely positive “collateral” effects both on their acceptance of homosexuals and on their self-perception as sexual beings. But you have right: it is neither our “moral duty”, nor a “social role” to liberate heterosexuals from their sexual troubles – we simply can’t take that burden on our shoulders.

I see three possible paths for the gay people: Assimilationism, Integrationism, and Separatism. Clearly, as a gay nationalist, I favor the last option. The gay people ought to be free to live their lives and build their culture along what ever lines they wish, and they should do so because they wish it.

As the disputants have noticed, it is not the “Us against Them” issue – how right they are! I only would add that this is an “Us without Them” issue. Not in the sense that straights are evil, or tiresome or whatever – no, they can be charming creatures and indeed I am very fond of pretty a bunch of them. Nevertheless, gay topics are an issue for gays, and we are well-adwised to undertake efforts to nurture our own developement and create our cultural and political institutions. Gay nationalism is not that much about segregation from “them”, it’s about unification of “us”. Logically, this consolidation of “us” as a people requires a predecessing mental separation from the straight society. Nationalism is by times wrongly perceived as a destructive and hateful ideology intended to withhold individuals and nations from fruitful cooperation and cultural exchange – how unjust is this misconception! Modern, positive nationalism is simply a means to give a framework for best possible developement of different cultures on the basis of mutual respect, while of course recognizing that we are all humans sharing the same planet.

Blindly copying the str8s in anything is foolish. Copying them in hope of some sort of recognition or acceptance from them borders upon stupidity.

The only valid reason to study and then copy or adapt anything invented by the heterosexuals is the furthering,preferably egoistic,of our own interest.In that respect,the aims of hethro societies are obviously of no use to us,and potentially dangerous for our identity.Whereas the means heterosexuals devise and use appear as rather odorless and colorless to me,even when they are repugnant from a moral or human point of view.

And if gay people are to marry, let them do so for reasons of their own devising, not in imitation of st8 people.

And above all,not recognizing or seeking heterosexuals as legitimate arbiters of eventual marital relations between gays.What happens betweengays is a matter only for a gay normative system and government.That normative system and government could or could not,depending uponthe circumstances and for reasons of public order,import some variant of the institution of marriage among the citizens of a gay country.If gaysliving in a situation of geopolitical freedom get along without quarrels and informally,we do not need marriage.If quarrels and blood feuds eruptover the preferencial relations of this or that individual,a gay State might have to encourage its citizens to register those preferencial relations,forexample in the form of monogamous or polygamous cliques,clans or tribes.It might also encourage such formal associations for reasons of socialsolidarity,and as a replacement for the family unit which,one can expect,won`t exist in a gay culture and country.

Marriage appeared in heterosexual societies for reasons which may not exist,at least to the same extent,among gays.

Absolutely.

And if gay people are to marry, let them do so for reasons of their own devising, not in imitation of st8 people. Heterosexuals, in their arrogance and by dint of their abundance have conjured a great many notions that they find to be precious and inviolable. Their ideas are not, and have never been, of inherent merit to the gay people. Blindly copying the str8s in anything is foolish. Copying them in hope of some sort of recognition or acceptance from them borders upon stupidity. A definition of "insane" is "doing the same thing over and over again, each time expecting a different result."

Are these participants Canadians who happen to be gay, or Gays who happen to live in Canada?

I consider myself as gay first."Canadian" is only a word on a piece of paper called passport,which I carry when venturing beyond Canada.There is also,within Canada,the Québécois identity.I would go as far as to state that I originated in that particular group,which by its French culture is closer to latin America than to English speaking Canada or to the United States.But I do not identify at all with the Québécois cultural group.My international identity is gay.The same with race: I do not identify with any race.Race and ethnicity of hethro origin can only sow disagreement and division among gays.Gays are one people,regardless of their birthplace,regardless of their ethnic or racial origin.Regardless of the fact that they have at the moment no country of their own.

The participants make a valid point when they say that "the state of queer politics is in the hands of a few lawyers slowly working their way through the ... legal system." It is notable that queer politics is somewhat out of step with the desires of queers in general. I would add that the state of gay culture seems to be in the hands of a few literati who are basically sucking at the teat of academia. Here too it seems that the academics' only contact with the gay world is a handful of privileged university students and a comfortable life near to one of the largest gay ghettos on the planet.

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“Heterosexuals rule the world, and if gay people want to be accepted, then we must pattern ourselves after those kind of behaviours.”

I do not put these words into the mouths of the participants: I understand that this is what they hear and not what they agree with. I have heard it as well. People who make such statements are fake str8 people. This is the argument of the closet, and of subservience. It is readily recognizable as internalized homophobia. "Gay Fundamentalism" is as good a term for it as any, though I still prefer "fake str8 people" or the somewhat more sarcastic "Stepford Fags." Oddly enough, the participants differ from this point only in degree. They seem to suffer from the delusion that they do not, as gay men, exist.

What a peculiar state of affairs: to not exist.

Instead they seem to think that their predilections are just individual quantum specks in a fluid sea of possibility. There is certainly a wide diversity of activity covered by the term "sexuality," and it may even be, as they curiously phrase it, "fluid." I would put it to these gentlemen that sexuality is not the point, nor ought it to be. Orientation is. If a gay man finds himself attracted in some way to a woman, it's pretty clear that he was never really gay to begin with. Whatever. Some people aren't gay. Is it exclusionary to say that some people are, quite simply, not gay? Perhaps, if it is exclusionary to say that a mountain is not a prairie. Shall a rose bush be offended that it may not be classed among the trees?

Now certainly it is no surprise that str8 people claim to rule the whole world (even the entire cosmos--down to inherently heterosexual atoms). That they are thusly deluded is among their great failings, and it makes them dangerous. It would be pleasant indeed if they would just stop it...but what evidence has there ever been that they even want to, that they would be able to if they did wish it? There is no reason whatsoever to agree with this outrageous claim, however. Imitating the heterosexuals in a bid for "acceptance" is the height of folly. Str8 society does not hate us because we do not sufficiently imitate them, they hate us because we are fags. It is that simple, and that irrational.

Is "Gay Fundamentalism" the next queer war? In terms of the overall flow of North American gay politics, most assuredly not. That battle will be against homophobia. Laws and policies have, at fantastic cost and effort, been passed. They are words on paper. As such, depending on the quality of the paper, these laws and policies might be sufficient to wipe one's ass. If they are to be more than toilet paper then the authorities are actually going to have to enforce them. Ultimately, it would be convenient if the populace were to comply with them. It this Gay Fundamentalism a serious issue for the gay people? Most assuredly. Are these participants Canadians who happen to be gay, or Gays who happen to live in Canada?

I see three possible paths for the gay people: Assimilationism, Integrationism, and Separatism. Clearly, as a gay nationalist, I favor the last option. The gay people ought to be free to live their lives and build their culture along what ever lines they wish, and they should do so because they wish it. I do not suggest abandoning living in buildings simply because str8 people also live in buildings. I do insist that if gay people are to live in buildings it shall be only because they want to, not because they think they might earn some reward of tolerance from the str8s for doing so. If we are to marry, it should be because we wish to do so, and it should be gay institutions that administer these contracts and gay laws that govern them.

I remember a time when all I wanted in the world was to be like everybody else. How grand and comforting it would have been to wake up and no longer be "different." I grew up. I will leave the arguments for assimilation and integration to others who would do them greater justice. I know in my heart that the first is both impossible and suicidal. The second is achievable, but only to the extent that this integration steers a course away from the destructive influences of assimilation.

The very idea that the gay people will be liberating heterosexuals from anything is really quite absurd. If we have learned anything, it is that liberating ourselves is more than battle enough. If the hets are to be liberated, they shall have to accomplish this feat on their own.

No amount of political figuring from our part should be based on the changes for the better supposedly to occur in heterosexual societies.It has been enough demonstrated in history that heterosexual societies were only relatively and above all only temporarily tolerant of homosexuality.The relatively favourable situation we enjoy now is like the similar situations encountered by us in past centuries and millenia,and which didn`t last.Our political figuring should rather be based on the assessment of the weaknesses of organized hethro societies,and on the prediction of their interegnums and eras of disorganization during which it would perhaps become possible for us to effect a geopolitical secession and set up a gay independent State.

This is an interesting topic, one that I shall have to digest a bit. Certainly I shall have to give the article a careful read before drawing any conclusions. Two peculiar notions did immediately jump out at me in the excerpt you quoted:

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CHOY: We should liberate heterosexuals from heterosexualism – their imposition and stereotyping of everyone else as being like them – just as we should liberate fundamentalists.

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CHOY: We get a glimpse of heaven when we’re in Canada. I say that often, because I feel that when we have enough people liberated to continue the conversation and the debate – that’s still unique given that this is just one continent of many continents.

The very idea that the gay people will be liberating heterosexuals from anything is really quite absurd. If we have learned anything, it is that liberating ourselves is more than battle enough. If the hets are to be liberated, they shall have to accomplish this feat on their own.

Perhaps I would have a different view of Canada if I lived there, or at least nearer to it. But "a glimpse of heaven?" I had no idea that gay teenagers were cast out from their homes in heaven, that gay men were beaten to death in city parks in heaven, that teachers could be accused of sexually molesting students because they washed their hands in a washroom in heaven. Perhaps it is just three decades in the Wiccan faith (we do not have this "heaven"), but I had not heard that heaven possessed these qualities. That said, Canada is no Iran, it is no Jamaica, and it is no United States. But to call it a "glimpse of heaven"...what drugs is this guy on? I think I want some.

Wayson Choy, author of The Jade Peony and All That Matters; Rinaldo Walcott, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at OISE at the University of Toronto; and fab Editor-in-Chief Mitchel Raphael discuss fundamentalism, AIDS, straight liberation and cupcakes.

RAPHAEL: We’re going to try to cover a broad range of categories in terms of what you think the next queer war is. Currently, the state of queer politics is in the hands of a few lawyers slowly working their way through the Canadian legal system, getting a few rights here and there. There isn’t much of a mass movement.

CHOY: A mass movement can only occur if enough of us feel we’re directly victims or if we can directly identify with the victims. Like a raid on the baths. But something like that hasn’t happened recently. So I don’t know if the community is asleep as much as it’s in an in-between state.

RAPHAEL: Do you think one of the next wars could be the liberation of the heterosexual?

CHOY: We should liberate heterosexuals from heterosexualism – their imposition and stereotyping of everyone else as being like them – just as we should liberate fundamentalists.

WALCOTT: I get to teach a lot of what we call the younger generation – people who are between the ages of 19 and 23. And among them, they are really divided. Some of them are sex radicals, and some of them are so deeply conservative that they would say things like, “Heterosexuals rule the world, and if gay people want to be accepted, then we must pattern ourselves after those kind of behaviours.” One of the things I’ve been giving a lot of thought to recently is also what I will call – playing with the word “fundamentalism” – gay and lesbian fundamentalism.

RAPHAEL: What is gay and lesbian fundamentalism?

WALCOTT: It’s a hell-bent desire on heterosexual respectability. What it means is that there are members of “the gay and lesbian community” that become unacceptable. It has a foundation – not unlike many other religious fundamentalisms – that is deeply moral. I don’t want to pick on the [gay] rights people, but definitely the overwhelming kind of argument for rights has produced this gay moralistic fundamentalism which puts down people who question boundaries, who raise difficult questions, who behave in a way that might trouble some of us.

[...]

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WALCOTT: And part of what has happened in the moment of achieving rights is that “proper lesbian and gay history” is undergoing a radical rewriting. And part of that rewriting is that all the marginal, outlaw figures of Jews, blacks, Latinos and drag queens have been written out of history. And our history has been populated with the first white Christian couple who challenged this pension law. And it’s not to say that these people are not radical and important and that we shouldn’t know their names and know the organizations that threw the cupcake sale to raise the money to pay for their defence. We need to know that. But we also need to know the names of the drag queens at Stonewall who said, “No more of this shit.” Another way in which I want to talk about sexual liberation would be, for instance, the need to recapture AIDS, and to say that AIDS was something that defined us in the ’80s and the ’90s. It brought us into a very particular political voice. In fact, I would argue, as some people are arguing, that if it wasn’t for HIV/AIDS, we would not even be going down the [gay] rights road. HIV has proved to us that if we couldn’t make a strong case around rights – being like everyone else – then heaven knows what those people might have done to us.

RAPHAEL: And I think that if there was a moment when queer concentration camps were to be built, it would have been around AIDS. But that did not happen. And I don’t think we appreciate that victory.

CHOY: We get a glimpse of heaven when we’re in Canada. I say that often, because I feel that when we have enough people liberated to continue the conversation and the debate – that’s still unique given that this is just one continent of many continents. I think what Canada has to offer is a space and a world in which these new gay debates can continue to push the boundaries and alter and allow people to be more tolerant of other people.